Is Homeschooling Best for Black Children?

So, you’re conscious about healthy eating and exercise, and you’re conscious about buying Black, but are you fully cued in to how your children are being taught?

A growing number of Black families are choosing to take their children’s education into their own hands by homeschooling. According to the National Home Research Institute, the number of Black families choosing to educate their children outside of the traditional school system has doubled over the past decade with an estimated 220,000 Black, school-aged children homeschooled today.

From institutionalized racism and race-based bullying to a desire to provide their children with adequate amounts of Black history, the reasons homeschooling Black parents have are wide and varied.

“Despite the promises of the civil rights movement, ‘people are starting to realize that public education in America was designed for the masses of poor, and its intent has been to trap poor people into being workers and servants. If you don’t want that for your children, then you look for something else,” Nikita Bush, leader of a homeschooling co-op in Atlanta, told Christian Science Monitor.

On average, homeschooled children score 15 to 30 percentile points above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests, the National Home Research Institute reports. Also, a 2015 study by the NHRI found Black homeschool students scored 23 to 42 percentile points above Black public school students.